ICO or NO? Ep. 3 Filecoin

Who has the hottest ICO? In this episode of ICO or NO, Jeremy talks about Filecoin, debuting July 27th. Filecoin aims to be a blockchain-based data storage solution.

What exactly is Filecoin & what problem does it hope to solve?

Most of us have had the horrible experience of finding out that you’ve used all of your free Dropbox space, but who really wants to upgrade? Hard drive expansion is necessary for many computer users, but most current solutions are inefficient or expensive.

Enter Filecoin! Filecoin is a data storage solution that utilizes the blockchain to improve efficiency, cost, as well as security.

Filecoin has created a new Proof-of-Work based mining system called Proof-of-Space-Time. Instead of mining depending on solving complex mathematical equations, blocks are mined by storing data. This allows you to put your unused storage to work by becoming a Filecoin miner. All you have to do is get the Filecoin mining software and start fulfilling storage requests on the Filecoin market.

Filecoin not only rewards those who store data, but also those who retrieve that out-of-network. Since this is all deecntralized, it ensures a more efficient, cost-effective way of transmitting information.

To sum up the project, clients pay to store and retrieve data, while storage miners get tokens to store that data, and retrieval miners get tokens every time they serve that data.

What are the market conditions?

There are a few projects that are trying to solve the same problem as Filecoin. Storj, Swarm, Sia, and OpenBazaar already are in the space. However, there is huge demand for storage solutions, as the amount of data that needs to be stored on the Internet is massive. So there may be room for more of them.

Large corporations have been hacked or infected with ransomware, so currently there is a significant demand for data storage solutions. Instead of one winner, there is space for several projects to grow in this space.

Who is behind the Filecoin project?

Fortunately, Filecoin already has a very established leader who has respect in the blockchain space. Juan Benet founded IPFS (Interplanetary File System) in 2014, and many projects are adopting this system. Benet’s presence gives the project instant credibility.

What is the design of the Filecoin ICO?

It is really important to note that this is one of the few ICOs based within the United States, so those securities laws must be observed. In order to do that, they are using a token sale platform called CoinList.

CoinList’s job is to make certain that the token sale is legal. It is restricting its buyers to accredited investors — the exclusive group of people with net worths of more than $1 million or incomes of $200,000 a year or more — who will have to complete U.S. investor accreditation and know-your-customer/anti-money laundering (KYL/AML) processes in advance of the sale. (It is also looking into allowing accredited investors in other jurisdictions to participate in the crowdsale.)

The purpose of this extra step is to make sure the project complies with anti-money laundering laws. Benefit of some safety with lightly added regulation, but it does restrict access.

The Filecoin Token Sale will begin on July 27, 2017 at 7pm GMT. The sale will take place on CoinList and is open for registration and pre-funding now.

Only 10% of tokens will be released in the sale, and while similarly small percentages will be reserved for the company and the Filecoin Foundation, the remaining 70% of the tokens will be used to reward miners of the blockchain-based network.

They plan to accept payments from most wallets, and they are looking to be on the exchanges shortly after the ICO.

ICO or NO covers some of the hottest tokens sales from the coolest projects! Jeremy, though his patented Four Question System*, dissects each project to help you better understand the token sale! Check out more of our ICO or NO episodes here, and subscribe to our YouTube channel for future ones!